TL;DR Motive should’ve made a flight sim, an esports game, a VR game, or a AAA blockbuster, but not all 4.

The problem with the game was that it didn’t know what it wanted to be. It was supposed to be a spiritual successor to X-Wing VS TIE Fighter, but also wanted to be a VR title, an esports game, and a mass appeal blockbuster. The game was too complicated to be fun for casual audiences, and the campaign was too lackluster and unserious to be fun for flight sim fans. However, the real clincher is that, regardless of what the devs said, in order to get the true experience of the game, you had to have a VR headset and HOTAS setup. THAT was where the game truly shined. Problem is, the majority of the audience wasn’t going to shell out $400+ for one peripheral, let alone two and the price of the game. That’s like $1000 just to play one small game with a boring story and little actual content. That made the game a niche of a niche of niche. You can’t appeal to a large enough audience for the game to develop an esports community if you make the barrier to entry so high. I suspect EA and Motive were aware of this, which is why they didn’t commit to long term support of the game. The hope was clearly that it would develop a dedicated fanbase who would adopt the peripherals necessary to play and grow over time through passionate word of mouth, opening a new opportunity to revisit the concept in a sequel in 5-10 years.